End of Semester Wrap-Up

As my first semester of graduate studies comes to a close, I have been taking some time (very brief moments with all the exams I’m completing) and thinking about where I am now from where I was just a few months ago.

At the beginning of this year, I had no idea what teaching English actually entailed other than what I had seen from my own teachers over the years and figured out for myself. So here is a little of what I learned:

There are more resources available than I ever even imagined. I am going to have technology savvy children coming into my door from day one and I will be doing them a disservice if I do not continue to be a lifelong learner and keep up with what they are using.

My wacky ideas and creativity are going to be an asset when I begin to create lesson plans. Having a sense of fun can only make assignments more exciting.

Students will respect an authoritative leader who is also democratic. I was always afraid to be the “mean teacher,” but I know now that students want some structure as long as it is fair.

I’ve been able to meet some incredible peers that I hope to continue bouncing my thoughts off of as we all continue on our journey as pre-service teachers and professors that I know I can trust to lead me on the right path towards the best classroom I can possibly have. My first day of substitute teaching was last week and I know that that experience along with my graduate classes will cause me to have the most experiences and growth possible. I can’t wait to see where I’ll be after a summer of more classes!

Writing's Future

I often hear talk of where the “future” of writing is going in education. I think it can pretty much be agreed upon across the board that it will be digital in some capacity, but what about the kind of writing?

Many outside of the “digital generation” see digital writing for the flaws that it can undoubtedly have. Sometimes it is short, words can be abbreviated, and thus- it gains the wrap of killing the English language and composition. Now, I do not believe any of this to be true. I support that digital writing is just as legitimate as any other form, but I do think there is an opportunity right now to shape where writing is headed in the education system within these digital forms.

The three main forms of writing I see as being done in school are research, creative, and standardized testing. I include standardized testing as a category so that I can go ahead and eliminate it as I feel it is rigid, archaic, and has no place in a child’s education. Now for the other two:

Research: I never really understood as a student why these papers were so important. Anyone that knows me can tell you that I’m a fly-by-night kind of soul, so I guess they were so strict. It is important for students to learn how to cite, but I’m not sure these papers are the way to do it unless the child is headed for a mathematical or scientific career.

Creative: In my opinion, this is where we need to target student writing. Creative fiction and nonfiction allow students to feel free to make mistakes and learn from them. They are not bound by anything but themselves and teachers have a great opportunity to connect and bring out great work from them. Creative nonfiction has come a long way and students can learn to cite and research based on it. Multigenre projects are an excellent way to accomplish all the goals any educator would set out to have a well-rounded pupil.

What do you think is the next frontier?

Keeping Students Going

As the summer is fast approaching, I have been thinking about the benefits of year-round schools to traditional ones and ways that students can keep learning instead of taking a detrimental two-month break.

I previously worked at a book warehouse that specialized in book fairs for schools. At the time, we were working on bundling books for a project in Virginia where students that were noted as having difficulties in literacy were allowed to choose around five books with a tutor helping them to make sure they were reasonable. The students were charged with reading these books throughout the summer and working with their tutors to complete book reports on each one.

I was so impressed with the program and the ability it would have to keep children engaged in the concepts they had been working on in school and to extend them to possibly get ahead for the next year while other students were just sitting around playing video games for the most part.

Why doesn’t every school have a program like this? I realize that getting free books for students is expensive, but is the cost more than the cost of the remedial education that has to be applied at the beginning of each year to get students back to where they were when they left? It seems like an easy solution to empower our students to be their best and succeed.

Going back to year-round vs. traditional, I think that there is obviously a price incentive when facilities can be used all the time by double and sometimes triple the students but there is also a lot to be said for continuous learning. I used to think they were not a great solution, but my opinion is continually changing with more observation of where children are not being served on extended off-times.

What do you think? Are there other solutions to keep our students learning all the time? 

Growing Young Minds

With the spring pollen assaulting my allergies, I thought it would be fitting to think about how teacher’s can grow and nurture student talent in our individual classrooms.

As you may have realized from my posts, I am a very creative-mind and appreciate things the quirkier the better. I was lucky enough to always have teachers that appreciated my unique ways of doing things. Some students under the ever-increasing pressure of test scores are not having such a lucky experience though.

Why worry?

What makes children different is what gives them a competitive edge in any market. The ability to creatively solve problems and live as a strong individual is invaluable in these economic times where jobs are self-directed and there are not as many personnel available to answer questions that may arise in the workplace.

What can a teacher do?

I’m not sure because I don’t have a classroom, but I have a few ideas!

1. Know your students: If you know what they like, you will know what you need to add into your teaching. Listen to what they do and find out about their extracurricular activities. Make sure you show up to plays and games and compliment your students involved in them in front of the other students the next day in your class. It will give them pride in what they’re doing and encourage them to keep with it.
2. Create open-ended projects: Let them make songs, perform a play, create and athletic game, or anything they feel speaks to them. They will still learn the material, but it will be put into a context that will be exciting for them and hopefully some of the other students with similar hobbies.
3. Leave time for free expressive activities: Post a creative writing topic on the board or let students draw something one day and create a project based on their drawings. The possibilities are endless! 

I would love to hear from current or past teachers about things that have proven successful in your classrooms so that I can improve my future one. Thanks!

Marie Antoinette

For one of my graduate classes, we are beginning multigenre projects on any topic of our choice. For this assignment, I chose to research and write about Marie Antoinette. I am still in the early stages of drafting but I am finding many parallels between my life and hers. Obviously, hers was quite a bit different and more extreme but there is a lot to be said for her struggles. I remember what it felt like to be gossiped about, thrown into uncomfortable situations, and the classic problem of trying to make someone love you. Her story could really relate to many people no matter their race, gender, or background. A huge part of the connection I have with Marie is also the love of nature that was shown through her endless floral prints, gardens, and her retreat. I’m excited to see what this project has in store for me. I think there will be a great deal of discovery about Antoinette if not even more about myself in the process. 

Untitled by Jean-Marie Hullot

Cool Tools

When I look at the increase in technology in schools since I was a student, it makes me pretty jealous. My generation is the start of the “digital native,” and yet… I hardly ever had the opportunity to use the tools I was interested in at home when I was at school.

For one of my classes this past week, we broke into groups and researched a “cool tool.” These are sites and applications being used in schools to get students excited about learning and invested in what they are doing. My group worked with the social bookmarking site, Diigo. I was so shocked to learn that such a tool existed. Diigo allows you to highlight sections of websites, add sticky notes, and save all of this information into a database you can access remotely on all of your electronic devices.

The other tools explored by groups were: Penzu, GoAnimate, Google Forms, Tagul, Screencast-O-Matic, Evernote, Storybird, Linoit, Edmodo, Wix, and Tiki-Toki.

All of the tools I saw would have been incredibly fun and helpful when I as a student. I’m glad we are making such strides to harness and help our second generation natives learn to use technology for educational purposes.

Are there any other "Cool Tools" that you know of or use in your own classroom?

Weird Harry Potter Post

Have you ever had a day or week that just seemed to be dominated by Harry Potter?

I feel like this situation has happened to me at least a few times a month for the past 10 years or so. I, like many, read the book series as a child and was enthralled by the story it told while being equally (if not more) impressed by the quality of J.K. Rowling’s writing and ability to plan and weave everything together. I have to admit that when I read it, I knew that it would stick with me but I had no idea that it would consume such a large part of my surroundings.

Since reading the books, I have gone to midnight book releases and movie premieres and even saw some of the locations that inspired aspects of the film or places that were actually used in England. Both of my parents love Harry Potter as well and we are all very familiar with the story… but shouldn’t references have calmed down after the end of the last film?

Harry Potter dominated this past weekend.

When I went home to visit my parents, some random conversation came around to the fact that my father could not remember whom Professor Quirrell was. That one comment triggered all of the events that followed in less than 48 hours:

-We watched the first Harry Potter film to show him who Quirrell was

(Insert lengthy conversation about Sorcerer’s Stone vs. Philosopher’s Stone)

-We watched the last Harry Potter film

-Decide Dad does not remember anything and proceed to explain the plot

(Insert Dad’s questioning about who every character is and his confusion about the epilogue)

-Late-night boredom strikes and I play Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 on Wii

-Finally beat the Lego Basalisk and text unassuming friends who don’t care

-Watch the Oscars without knowing any nominees or categories

-Feel angry and cheated when Harry Potter loses categories

(Insert Mom’s justification of why they should have won)

I think it is a true testament that these books and films have impacted so many people and media realms. This may all stem from the fact that that my parent’s enjoy Harry Potter, I am nerdy, or simply that it is just a mass phenomenon that will probably never lose momentum, but I can’t think of any other franchise that comes close to equaling it.

I’m not complaining about this in the least. I think that any recognition this amazing series receives is well worth it. I’ll continue my fandom forever and pass it along to my children I’m sure, but I guess I just find it interesting to think about how something outside of yourself can consume so much of you. I thought that attention to it would die down after a while, but it seems to keep growing even though the books and films are finished.

Sorry for this weird rant, but it has been on my mind and it is now taking over my blog. Are there any specific things that keep popping up unexpectedly in your life? 

How Can You Judge?

Much of the reading and pedagogical conversations I have had about teaching composition have included the element of having students keep some sort of a journal. There are countless incarnations of this idea, but most come back to the ideology that it should be a place for students to express their opinions and thoughts freely. As long as they are writing and personally getting something out of it, the content is secondary. With this in mind, I have to say that an article I read recently about a college student who is currently suspended for writing a sexually charged entry about his professor took me aback. The student took his prompt from a Van Halen lyric about being “hot for teacher.” According to the article and video (which I will link below), the man had previously written sexual pieces and was given reinforcement for them with good grades from the same teacher. Teachers constantly ask their students to write anything they want in their notebooks without fear of judgment… but is that sentiment true?

Now, I’m not saying that I expect any of my future students to think that I am attractive in any way- but it still makes me wonder how the situation should be handled.

Here are my questions: Should there be parameters on what a student is allowed to write? If you tell the student to be open in their assignments, are they allowed to use curse words and images that speak truthfully to them? Do you discipline or question a student’s writing when it is not apparently harming himself or herself or anyone else?

I think that this situation would be a little less threatening with children rather than the older man the article focuses on, but I think it is still a tricky one to tackle. My thought would be to write a note in the student’s journal that I appreciate their writing efforts but do not find the subject matter appropriate (I would also make photocopies of all this to protect myself if any outside readers got the wrong impression). From there, I feel the solution could be as simple as researching other Van Halen songs and giving the student prompts that are in-line with their interests and do not have such an uncomfortable outcome. Obviously I do not have access to the entirety of the selection written by the student in the article but suspension seems a little extreme. It seems like there may be more to the story to make the professor so offended that she could not tolerate having the student in class.

How would you deal with a situation like this? 

Changes

There has been a lot going on in my life over the past week with both school and life.

I am very excited to announce my new internship with the Wake County Public School System in the Leaders4Wake program! For the next few months, I will be working with the Office of School Innovation to research new kinds of schools that could be implemented into WCPSS. Innovation is one of my main goals within my future classroom, so I know that this will be a very productive way to learn new systems and ways to go about teaching in a way that will be exciting for myself and for my students. The office is fairly new to Wake County and this internship program is being done for the first time, so I am able to have some flexibility to focus on my passions while still helping out the office. My final project is not finalized yet, but I am considering making some components of a proposal for a new kind of school. The internship also offers me the opportunity to talk to many leaders of the school system and learn about how it runs from the inside out. Look out for my experiences in future blog posts!

As for my personal life, having this internship on top of full-time graduate school has finally convinced me to rent an apartment closer to my school in order to cut off my commute time and save gas. I looked up places on Craigslist to sublet just throughout my internship duration. There were only two places in my price range around the area near my school. The first one I e-mailed did not respond, so I was left with only one selection. I went to the apartment, decided it was a good fit, and went home to tell my parents all the details. At this point, my mother started talking about where she used to live in Raleigh. As it turned out… I was moving into the SAME apartment she occupied in 1972! I am so excited to re-live my mom’s college days and make good memories of my own in a place she loved so much.

Now I have to get back to the schoolwork that I have gotten a little behind on with all of these great changes. See you all in my next post!

Be Kind: A Rant.

Today I am taking a break from education to give a bit of a rant. This past Sunday, I was sitting in the Target parking lot at 7:55 a.m. on a gray and rainy morning. I felt really ridiculous waiting for the chain store to open their doors at 8, but I was on an unfortunate mission imposed by a small group of people that have ruined the common sense once held by many.

Let me explain:

About six years ago, Target began creating collaborations with well-known designers. These clothes and accessories keep the designer’s aesthetic but are made from different materials to make them affordable for the mass consumer market (…think polyester instead of silk) and they are only available for a limited time. As a high schooler, these collections could not have been any more exciting for me. I felt like I could be the fashionista I dreamed of being on my part-time job salary. It was a tradition for me to get up really early and be ready for the store to open so that I could have the first pick of what I wanted. I would say that 98% of the time I was the only person there and the cashiers looked at me like I was crazy, but I had so much fun feeling like I was ahead of some trend. 

Then came Missoni. 

To any person who reads a lot of news or shops at Target, the name may sound familiar to you. Missoni was released in the fall of 2011 and was promoted as Target’s largest collaboration to date. I had stopped bothering to go early to Target when I got into college because I felt I had to grow up and I didn’t have time to do silly things. After I got out of class in the early afternoon of the launch date, I decided to go to my local store and just see what they had from the ads that were in all of my magazines. When I got to the store, the racks were empty. The only trace of merchandise was in the children’s section. Confused, I went home and looked online only to find that Target’s website had been crashed. Stories began to come onto the Internet of people buying THOUSANDS of dollars worth of merchandise and having to use multiple cards as soon as the store opened. Over the next few weeks, these items began to surface on eBay for nine and ten times the retail price… and people were actually buying them. It was incredibly confused and disheartened that someone would pay ridiculous prices for Target quality items.

Back to present day.

Sunday was the launch of the Jason Wu for Target collection. There were a couple of tops that I thought would be perfect for school and so I decided to try and get them. When the lights cut on at 8, I got out of my car and walked into the building. There were already people who had run from the other door snatching up everything they could. One woman took everything in my size and I was left to grab only one thing I was even remotely interested in because it would fit. Women were on the phone with their friends at other stores coordinating who had what and looking at lists of clothes and sizes they needed to grab. It was insane and I honestly felt sick about what was happening. This is what eBay has done. It has taken away the joy of the people who want to enjoy the clothes and given it to the scalpers who are making a profit by preying on the fact that the items are limited edition.

The situation made me stand back and think about how sad it is that we are being oppressed not only by corporations, but also by our peers. I would never ever buy a Target item off of eBay and I just want others to feel the same way. I am tired of being taken advantage of by vultures that care nothing about me as a person. I think the world needs a large dose of kindness and hospitality. If we don't look out for each other, who will? 

In conclusion, I’ll leave this post with a video of the Jason Wu launch in Miami where two people ran in and cleared every single rack before any of the people who waited in line could make purchases:

Moral is: If we were all considerate, we would have a much kinder and happier place to live. 

How to Deal with Teen Pregnancy in Schools

Last night I felt the full wrath of being a woman when the Lifetime movie The Pregnancy Project came on television. I knew that I had to watch it because of the drama and tears I was sure that it held. What I was not prepared for was actually learning a lesson from the low-budget film.

The Pregnancy Project tells the true story of a high school teen that faked her own pregnancy as her senior project. Only a few people knew that it was a lie and most students, teachers, and people in her family were left in the dark about it. She gave the people who were helping her with the project journals and they would write down anything they heard someone say about her. Everyone was extremely judgmental and stereotyped her based on what they saw in movies and on television about teen pregnancy. Nobody believed that she could have any kind of life if she was going to be a mother. When she finally took off her fake belly at an assembly in front of the whole school, everyone realized the horrible things they had said and how those stereotypes had taken away the person behind them.

What I was really inspired by in this film was one of her teachers that supported her throughout. It made me think about how I might deal with the very real possibility of having a pregnant student in my own classroom. After seeing the film, I now feel like the best way to approach the situation is to let the student know you are there for them and encourage them to continue going after their dreams. As an educator, you cannot always hear or control what other students may say, but you can help the pregnant student to know they are supported and you see them for the person they are instead of the person they are carrying. I think the idea of really supporting and knowing what is going on with students is essential to be the kind of role model and teacher that I plan to be.

Below is the trailer for The Pregnancy Project if you want to check it out:

How would you deal with a pregnant or stereotyped student? 

Pushing Through to Inspire

I will be the first person to admit that I can be a real quitter. It is probably part my large imagination, unrealistic expectations, and general laziness that keep me from accomplishing my goals, but nonetheless- a lot of things that I want to do get thrown by the wayside. I’m talking musical instruments, trips, room decorating, diets, and the list could go on and on with dead hobbies.

Academically, I have done everything that I set out to do and more. I graduated from high school, went to college directly from there, studied abroad in England, graduated from undergraduate a semester early, and headed to graduate school directly from that. My goals in school seem oddly simple and routine to set, work towards, and reach. I do the work, grumble about hating to do the work, procrastinate until the last minute, and somehow it all turns out beautifully.

So, why am I writing this?

Well, it’s time to quit quitting. As someone who hopes to foster a positive environment and inspire my students to achieve their dreams, I have to begin to reach into the extracurricular. I think that I need it for my ability to be a role model and for my own personal gain. So the question is, what am I going to do?

I have decided to try and do the thing that is most outside my regular personality and skill set: running.

Not being able to run is something that I have always wanted to change about myself. It is a constant source of heckling from my athletic friends and it has inhibited me from participating in a lot of sports and games as a camp counselor that I wanted to join in on. I’m not sure if I am just extremely out of shape or if I am just doing it wrong. I know that sounds silly, but last time I went running it was in the morning and I was only out for 30 minutes. By the afternoon, I had the flu and I was so sick I couldn’t leave my bed for about three weeks (a story my athletic friends again found hilarious).

To turn this around, I plan to start training for the 2013 Disney Princess Half-Marathon in Disney World. The race is held in Disney and it is 13.1 miles circling the park. I like the idea of having something whimsical and fun to work towards when I know the training will be painful and dull. Each runner must do each mile in 16 minutes or under, but they say to train for under in case you need breaks on the way. I’m not sure quite yet what I am going to do as far as training, but I hope to go to a gym soon and talk to a trainer about exercises that will help me endure the race. I think this will be an excellent way to prove my strength to myself and others and it will give me a fun way to show children that anything is possible.

To leave you all off, here is a picture I found from an unknown source that sums me up as of now:

I'm more than ready to look like the top picture! 

Children and Technology

As a product of what I would consider the beginnings of the digital generation, I cannot imagine a time before there was at least a computer in my home. Hours, days, and weeks of my life have been spread over the Internet with the rise of social networking around my middle school days… but it was entirely my doing and my choice. It is impossible to imagine if it had been out of my control.

I am currently working on my master’s degree to be a high school teacher. I love the idea of teaching children to access the positive benefits of the technology that daily assaults them, but I have to admit that an article entitled "Bringing Up Baby in the Digital Age" by Martin Lindstrom has caused me to second guess the exposure children are garnering from social networking.

Lindstrom reports the findings of Internet security firm AVG, which reported that: “92% of American children have an online footprint before the ripe old age of 2 years old.”

92% before most children can form sentences.

The facts become more startling when he states, “their digital presence often begins with their first image- a sonogram- being posted online.” Of course, many of my pregnant friends have 3D and the, ever-so-creepy, “4D” sonograms of their unborn children on Facebook, but until now it has always been just a way to show their excitement in my eyes. While I at least think my personal friends have stopped there, “7% (of children) are born with a pre-established email address, and a further 5% have a social network profile.”

With these statistics, every student I have at age 14 or so will have a fully established, documented, and heavily broadcast life available on the Internet. Is it right for me as an educator to add to this pile?

Lindstrom spent time with 10 families whose children who had online representation. The two children focused on in the article were trapped either by their parents or themselves as a result of social media. Both children interviewed exhibited that their privacy had been taken away and they were forced to live inside themselves and inside their homes to have any feeling of safety.

I believe that school is a place where all children have the right to feel safe. I want to add to this atmosphere without intensifying any prior situations, but it seems naive to neglect how useful social networking can be to learning. Students can tweet their thesis statements for papers or make connections to people they might never have a chance to meet in real life who could help them enhance their writing.

I am left now thinking about what age children should be subjected to social media, is it right to force them to use it either as a parent or teacher, and what, if any, limits need to be in place to protect a child’s psychological state?

The original article can be found here.

Please leave any comments with your personal feelings! I’d love to hear other opinions on this subject.